Rendered: 2016 BMW X1 Hybrid with 7 seats

The BMW X1 family will gain one more member next year – a 7 seater small SUV. The BMW X1 with an extended wheelbase and …

The BMW X1 family will gain one more member next year – a 7 seater small SUV. The BMW X1 with an extended wheelbase and an extra row of seats is geared towards the Chinese market. The extended wheelbase BMW X1 will essentially be the same front-wheel drive based X1, based on BMW’s new UKL architecture, except it will have an extra row of seats, making it a seven seater.

This new Chinese market BMW X1 has recently been spied testing and it looks incredibly similar to the standard car. The rendering embedded here builds atop that and highlights an extended roofline less sloping than the standard wheelbase model and with a rear end a bit taller. Also, the shape of the three-quarter glass is slightly different than the standard car.

Most of the extended-wheelbase prototypes spied had a “Hybrid Test Vehicle” sticker on them so we expect to see a product model using the same drivetrain as the one found in the 2 Series Active Tourer. Likely to debut as the X1 xDrive30Le, the hybrid will use a 2.0 liter four-cylinder engine mated to an 88hp / 136 Nm/100 lb-ft of torque electric motor powering the rear wheels through a two-speed transmission. The total power output is expected to be slightly above 200 horsepower.